It’s our Holiday bonus episode. Christmas is the time to tell podcasters the truth. A time to show up outside their window with criticisms of how their voices sound the same. We look at some of the cultural trends of Christmas in the 2000s, including The War on Christmas, Elf, Love Actually, and some TV episodes. 

Hello there! Welcome to The Shuffle Galaxy and our exploration of one of the worst franchise trilogies from the 2000s. Forget everything you know about storytelling fundamentals: characters, acts, arcs, emotions, and nuance—throw it right in the trash compactor– because in the child-like mind of George Lucas, what makes a movie great is an over-the-top third act CGI battle scene on whatever backdrop most resembles your childhood living room floor. George Lucas’s nine-hour monstrosity has so...

As a follow up the 2008 election, we return to late 2000s, early 2010s political culture to discuss the 2008 financial crisis, the government’s intervention in the economy, and the mass movement against it: The Tea Party Movement. A Mass Movement of Free Market ideologue’s who believe that the financial crash didn’t happen because of deregulation–but because we actually didn’t do the free market enough. A reading series of Glenn Beck explores their monstrous, dogmatic worldview, followed by...

Welcome to the program, we got a great show for you today, Isaac Eger (@gluten_daddy) is joining us to discuss The Daily Show with Jon Stewart! Remember Shuffle takes a look at one of the most influential TV shows from the 2000s, responsible (for good and ill) for the current state of desk comedy. The Shuffle Bois break down the four distinct eras of the daily show: the leather jacket, 90s alt-comic era, the righteous anger era, the lecture series era, and everyone’s favourite: the dogshit...

Remember Shuffle goes indie this week for its obligatory “Spooky Season” episode and takes a look at 2001’s Donnie Darko. This indie film became a cult classic, spawning countless hours of internet sleuthing analysis, and is probably the biggest “cult” film of the decade. We break down the incredibly straightforward and simple plot of the film, discuss its themes of teen angst, alienation, fate vs predeterminism, madness, and creative destruction, and finally close with a discussion of the...

Bryan Quinby of Street Fight Radio and Guys joins to cover one of the ultimate types of 'Guy': Guy Ritchie--and specifically his 2000s masterpieces Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. We cover the type of guy who loves this movie, petty criminals, and how none of the crimes in these movies are even illegal anymore. check out more Bryan at patreon.com/murderxbryan Jason Statham's wig:...

We turn, finally, to the greatest pop-cultural artefact of the 2000s—77 minutes of laying out exactly why Googling “what is the greatest show of all time” will return “The Sopranos”. We go over the Sopranos' greatest features, including the internal continuity that each episode has with its small details and imagery, like Curb Your Enthusiasm’s interweaving plots, but for drama. The episode is a first pass at explaining why the Sopranos is a 6 tool player at: plot, setting, characters, style,...

This week we are once again joined by Mike Duncan as we turn to our favourite all-frills movie from the 2000s, Sophia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.” We review this film that had mixed reviews at the time, but in retrospect is a masterpiece of ennui, decadence, and style. En route, we discuss different approaches to the historical biopic, malign the double standard of “style-over-substance” discourse, and muse on what different countries’ dogs say about them.  Listen to Mike Duncan’s podcasts...

We came, we saw, we podcasted. Huge thanks to @Mike Duncan for coming on the pod to review HBO’s Rome with us. The most expensive TV show ever made at its time, and a beautiful show which actually put its budget to good use (unlike, a certain LoTR series). The show gets the Julius Cesar story so right (with a few funny anachronisms), and adds on a Forrest Gump like historical fiction. It immerses you in the values and morals of classical Rome and we love the voodoo magic of day-to-day Roman...

The Remember Shuffle crew turns the nostalgia dial up to 11 and talks about the rise and fall of Blockbuster. Every millennial’s favourite corporate monopoly, they talk about how Blockbuster’s business morons killed it in the 2000s, by white knuckling the company through 25 years of unprecedented American growth. They examine how Netflix supplanting Blockbuster is a fitting allegory for the ways the world has changed since the 2000s. Specifically, with respect to the almighty Algorithm, the...

Ahoy hoy, shuffleheads! Today Remember Shuffle takes a look and 2003’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the first entry in the best franchise that never was. To help us analyze this film, we are joined by Everett Rummage of the Age of Napoleon podcast. We discuss the uniqueness and out-of-place nature the film in the decade, how this film runs on vibes, the historical authenticity of the film, and why its failure to generate more than 200 million dollars in revenue doomed it...

Remember the Iraq War? It’s back, in prestige cable miniseries form. To discuss Generation Kill, Ben and Jordano are joined by two experts in the David Simon cinematic universe: Matt Lieb and Vince Mancini from Pod Yourself a Gun. They review the show’s realism, its “f**k the bosses” ideology, its ability to emphasize the total asymmetry of the Iraq War, and the general lack of Iraq War media in the years since 2003. Check out Vince Mancini’s substack page here:...

A day in the life of a true Folkloric Geezer.  Wake up and meet the wife Marian. isn't she beau’iful? Time to take Much to stoolball. Rev up the Marrymen, ye! Quick stop at the Hostelry and load up that plate. Get a pint. Forest lookin' lovely today lads. Just a bit of banter. The Fair makes a 38-nil loss be’’er. Pop down local pride, Good ol' pie! Look at that! Marian made dinner, lovely! Pop down have a couple pints with the lads, And finish up in the fortress of dreams. See...

Since we are now living in the era of the Sonic and Super Mario Bros movie, not to mention HBO’s The Last of Us, Remember Shuffle is taking a look at how the big-budget video game adaptation all began back in the 2000s. They review three films that, even if profitable, have been totally memory-holed by society: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Max Payne (2008), and The Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time (2010). They also do some quick rapid-fire reviews of Resident Evil (2001), Doom (2005),...

Remember Shuffle returns to the world of videogames and discusses one of the best-selling PC games of all time and a pillar of 2000s video gaming, The Sims franchise. They describe the most iconic features of The Sims (simlish, woo hoo, pool accidents), analyze what drew people to this consumerist capitalist dollhouse simulator, and debate the best and worst ways to play this game.

There is no Spoonfeeding in this absolutely flawless, perfect film from outside the purview of the dumb decade the Shuffle bois do a podcast about, The Matrix (1999). Sadly, they cannot say the same for the film's 2000s era sequels - movies so bad, they retroactively ruined a great movie. Ben and Jordano look at how The Matrix, an End of History era sci-fi action, hacker thriller, kung fu movie changed the game in so many ways both then and now: from parodies, to memes, to legacy sequels, to...

It’s the second entry in Remember Shuffle’s “type of guy” series, and in this episode we are turning away from the meatspace hipster culture we discussed in the first entry and looking to the online world of atheism, bacon, and, of course, posting. The Shuffle Bois look at a particular kind of posting culture, the Epic Bacon Reddit Guy, a culture that flourished on Reddit (naturally). They break down the Epic Bacon Reddit Guy’s sense of humour, analyze and trace their love of bacon, and...

Remember Shuffle is going international. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois and a couple cosmopolitan guests take a look at the 21st century’s Most American Book and Film™: Eat, Pray, Love. They analyze Elizabeth Gilbert’s autobiographical memoir about a Karen finding herself in Italy, India, and Indonesia, and en route discuss the author’s selfishness and narcissism, her hilarious orientalizing portrayal of Italy, and her specific version of American protestantism in which you get to become God.

This week, the Remember Shuffle returns to the world of the sitcom to discuss everyone’s favo[u]rite show about a mid-level paper company, The Office. They discuss the show’s unforgettable characters including Michael Scott, the well-intentioned moron with a heart of gold, Dwight, the “white trash bushido” paper salesman, and Andy, the downwardly mobile failson. En route, they discuss the changing setting of the sitcom from the domestic space to the workplace, the phenomenon of the B******t...

I only like Remember Shuffle’s earlier stuff. On this episode, the Remember Shuffle crew put on their armchair sociologist hats and do a new kind of episode. Rather than discussing a movie, book, or album, they cover a countercultural figure that rebelled against the mainstream in the 2000s, The Hipster. The first entry in our “type of guy” series, the Shuffle Bois discuss why The Hipster emerged in the 2000s, their philosophies of irony, nostalgia, and a priorism. Also, What are the 3 types...

The Shuffle bois are joined by two of their favo[u]rite podcasters, whom you may know from Chapo Trap House, Hell of Presidents, or the recently-released Hell on Earth podcast, Matt Christman and Chris Wade. They discuss one of the candidates for G.O.A.T. 2000s sitcom, Arrested Development. They discuss its portrayal of both the “failson” and the media-career desperate American, walk through the show’s commentary on everything from the Iraq War to Southern California land development fraud,...

Some Remember Shuffle episodes are about influential, fundamental pieces of pop culture that help explain the pop culture landscape that we find ourselves in today. This is not one of those episodes. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois unpack and analyze Spike TV, the 2000s TV network for men, and one of its original brogram, The Deadliest Warrior. After walking through Spike TV’s unhinged manifesto, the Shufle Bois scientifically deconstruct every aspect of the Deadliest Warrior: its three...

In a pod, in the cloud, the Shuffle Bois and special guest BillBurr Baggins leave the POW camp of life and talk about a hopeful, optimistic, escapist fantasy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The first entry in Peter Jackson’s masterpiece trilogy, so many things make it great: its fundamentally sincere and positive message, the spectacular worldbuilding and execution of Peter Jackson’s vision, and its perfect pacing (despite its extended runtime). We also trace the...

Of the three presidential elections that happened in the Y2K decade, 2008 was, without a doubt, the most entertaining. It features a fascinating cast of characters: alien body-snatcher Hillary Clinton, sex rascal Bill Clinton, legend-icon-moment Barack Obama, foreign policy war psycho John McCain, and the ineffable Sarah Palin. She’s ineffable in that she can’t talk right. Put all these people on the national stage, and you’re guaranteed a spectacle only rivaled by 2016. We walk through the...

The Strokes rock. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. Here’s a 1:12:51 long discussion on how cool they are. The Shuffle Bois discuss how bad rock music was in the late 90s and early Y2K era, which made what the Strokes pulled off all the more impressive. They discuss why the indie garage rock scene in NY blew up, the hilariously privileged background of the Strokes, and dissect some songs from their first three albums and why they’re great. They also have some connections to the 2020...